Amid the series of vanities that Kohelet enumerates in this chapter, he pauses to praise one thing: joy. On the surface, this is puzzling: does not the entire book come to make a person aware of the futility of transient pleasures, yet suddenly we read, "And I commended joy"? Rather, one must understand what kind of joy is being spoken of, and what the verse means by "to eat, to drink, and to rejoice." Let us examine the verse in light of Rashi, the Midrashim, and the author of Imrei Shefer, and see how a person's entire perspective on life can be transformed through a single word: yilvenu ("shall accompany him").
וְשִׁבַּחְתִּי אֲנִי אֶת הַשִּׂמְחָה, אֲשֶׁר אֵין טוֹב לָאָדָם תַּחַת הַשֶּׁמֶשׁ כִּי אִם לֶאֱכֹל וְלִשְׁתּוֹת וְלִשְׂמוֹחַ, וְהוּא יִלְוֶנּוּ בַעֲמָלוֹ יְמֵי חַיָּיו אֲשֶׁר נָתַן לוֹ הָאֱלֹהִים תַּחַת הַשָּׁמֶשׁ. - And I commended joy, for there is nothing better for man under the sun than to eat, to drink, and to rejoice; and that shall accompany him in his toil all the days of his life that God has given him under the sun.
Rashi explains: "And I commended joy" - that a person should be content with his portion. This does not refer to the frivolity of revelry or mere physical indulgence, but to the joy of "the statutes of Hashem are upright, rejoicing the heart," that one should not be swept away after amassing wealth through interest, usury, and robbery. Whatever you have, rejoice in it. This is man's wholeness: to be content with whatever the Holy One, Blessed be He, has given him.
And anyone who is not content with his portion, says Rashi, and is swept up in the pursuit of money, will inevitably come to transgressions of robbery, fraud, and interest. Why? Because here he can turn an extra profit, there he can make some more money, and elsewhere he can extract something more, until in the end he is thoroughly entangled in sin. So too, one who is not content with his portion regarding the love of his wife - the Holy One, Blessed be He, arranged a spouse for him, yet he is not happy with her; he ends up chasing other women and coveting a married woman, Heaven spare us, scooping coals of fire into his own bosom.
What, then, is proper? "To eat and to drink" - from what the Holy One, Blessed be He, has graciously granted him, and to rejoice in his portion. Here, too, the rule is not to pursue things too great or too wondrous for oneself: whatever you can afford to buy, buy; whatever you cannot afford, do not plunge into debt to attain something beyond your means. Nor does this apply only to food and drink. It applies to housing, vehicles, and a thousand other things. A person lives way beyond his means, and one must ask: where are you leaping to? You take on debts, mortgages, and all manner of financial obligations, and then you have no peace, no tranquility of soul; it tears you away from Torah study, leaves you unable to concentrate, and keeps you constantly running from one gemach to another. This is not the way. What, then, does a person need? To be content with his portion: what Hashem has given me is good for me, it is enough for me. Is there an opportunity to upgrade? When you have the funds, upgrade; when you do not, do not.
In truth, this basic financial common sense was second nature to our grandparents. They did not need a life coach to guide them, nor a financial counselor to oversee them. There were no organizations and agencies to put people on their feet and teach them how to manage money. They knew nothing of credit cards, swiping cards, or Visa lines of credit. Their rule was clear: if you have money, buy; if you do not have money, buy it next month, in two months, save up and then buy. Today, it is just the opposite: first buy, and if you have no money, save later; and since it is in installments, what is the harm? People live without reckoning, and suddenly find themselves facing financial ruin.
There was once a person who ran up an overdraft of eighty thousand shekels in his account. When asked how one reaches such an overdraft - in the days when banks were far more generous with credit lines, as they collected handsome interest - he replied: "Hand me a checkbook, and I will show you how. What is the difficulty?" When asked, "And doesn't this bother you?" he replied: "Once you pass twenty thousand shekels, you actually become calm." When asked why, he answered: "Since I have no way of paying back twenty thousand anyway, what difference does it make whether it is twenty or eighty?" This is how people live without reckoning, never stopping to ask: at whose expense are you living? At whose expense are you purchasing? It is money you do not possess - why are you spending it? This is what Rashi means: one who is not content with his portion and is obsessed with money falls into sins of theft, fraud, and interest. On what basis did you buy, when you have no means of repayment?
And when a person has no money, what does he do? He accustoms himself to all sorts of indulgences, and then searches for human ATMs: either he turns to begging to finance his desires, or he takes from his parents: "Mom, I need to buy this; Dad, I need that." Are parents an ATM machine? You are an adult, fully capable of managing your finances responsibly. Frustrated parents often call and ask: "Rabbi, is this right? Is this how children should behave? Am I obligated to pay for and fund this? He presents me with a done deal: 'I bought such and such, now I have no money, I have to repay the bank, I am in the red, checks are bouncing.' And what can the parents do - throw their son to the dogs?"
To such a person one responds: Sir, your child is not to blame. It is not the mouse that steals, but the hole. A person who sows garlic should not expect to harvest roses. Everything depends on how you raised and educated him. If you trained the child to know that he has a set amount of money and must learn to manage with it - he will manage. But if he knows he has an ATM, coming and withdrawing whenever he pleases, running into overdrafts - that is what you created. And having created that, do not complain afterward. It is painful, but these are the facts. A person must understand: the moment one is not content with his portion, he inevitably falls into all kinds of sin and wrongdoing. What, then, should one do? "To eat and drink" from whatever the Holy One, Blessed be He, has granted him. Whatever He has bestowed upon you - enjoy it. When you have it, buy; when you do not, do not buy.
Rashi adds: And according to the Midrash Aggadah, all eating and drinking mentioned in Kohelet refers exclusively to Torah study. Our Sages expound, "that there is nothing better for a man under the sun than to eat, drink, and be glad," in the spirit of "Come, eat of my bread, and drink of the wine I have mixed" (Mishlei 9:5), which refers to eating and drinking the holy Torah.
And what is the meaning of "and this will accompany him" (vehu yillavennu)? Rashi explains that it is from the language of accompaniment: this is what will accompany a person and join him, as in the verse, "and your righteousness shall go before you" (Yeshayahu 58:8). What will accompany you to the World of Truth? The mitzvot and the Torah you performed. "All the days of his life which God has given him" - this is what he should do. And Rashi notes that the end of the verse applies back to its beginning, being an inverted verse (mikra mesoras). An inverted verse means that the syntax is transposed, and following the commentators' approach in such cases, it should be reordered so that it reads continuously and clearly: "There is nothing better for a man all the days of his life which God has given him than to eat, drink, and be glad, and this will accompany him in his toil." That is to say: What is good for a person during the days of his life that God has given him? That he should eat, drink, and rejoice - through Torah study and the observance of mitzvot - and this is what will accompany him for his toil when he arrives to receive his reward.
The Pesikta Zutarta explains similarly: "So I commended joy" - this refers to mitzvot, as it is stated in Mishlei: "It is joy to the righteous to do justice" (Mishlei 21:15). Performing Hashem's ordinances - that is the joy. "That there is nothing better for a man under the sun than to eat, drink, and be glad, and this will accompany him in his toil." Rabbi Yose said: Do eating and drinking accompany a person from the moment of his death? Is that what will accompany a person? Rather, it is obvious that the verse is speaking only of good deeds and mitzvot. And wondrously enough, this is truly what will accompany a person for his toil all the days of his life that God has given him under the sun - Torah, mitzvot, and good deeds.
And Midrash Rabbah says likewise: Are there food and drink in the grave, that they should accompany a person to his grave? Rather, these are the Torah and mitzvot a person performed. And according to this, "will accompany him in his toil" (be'amalo) - "in his toil" means in his world (be'olamo), in this world, and that is what will accompany him even to the grave.
The Imrei Shefer asks: What is the difference between simchah (joy) and gilah (exultation) and the other terms for joy? The Malbim has already taught us that simchah is constant, enduring joy. By contrast, when a person experiences a sudden, surprising joy - such as over an unexpected windfall - Scripture uses the term gilah. That is not ordinary, continuous joy. But when a person walks through life perpetually cheerful, his constant joy is called simchah.
Accordingly, "So I commended joy" - this joy is the quality of being content with one's lot (same'ach bechelko). It does not mean ecstatic celebration, but being satisfied with one's portion. And what does it mean to be content with one's portion? That one is satisfied with his lot, and whatever befalls him does not plunge him into sadness. This is the joy spoken of here: not an emotional rush of wild rejoicing, but contentment. Even if circumstances are not exactly as he might wish, he is content with what he has. This is constant joy.
"That there is nothing better for a man under the sun than to eat and drink" - here the verse refers to the primary essentials a person requires: food and drink. And aside from these two, "and to be glad" - that he be satisfied with whatever happens to him, whether good or bad. And how can a person attain this? The Imrei Shefer offers advice, found in the continuation of the verse: "and this will accompany him in his toil."
To what may this be compared? A poor man comes, begs, pleads, and prostrates himself before a wealthy man to lend him money. After great effort he manages to persuade him, and the wealthy man relents and gives him a loan of one hundred thousand dollars. Imagine that the poor man walks out of the rich man's house and says: "I worked so hard for this money! It didn't come easily to me; I exerted myself tremendously for it, I acquired it through my own toil - do you know how many times I knocked on this door, how many times I pleaded?" In light of this, he begins squandering the money on all his heart's desires, never considering that he received a loan, and that a loan has a due date and a repayment deadline. When the creditor comes to claim what is his, the borrower becomes furious and bears intense hatred toward him. Why? Because he grew accustomed to the money and thought it came through his own labor and belonged to him. He was confused, imagining it was an outright grant - as if loans turn into gifts and debt write-offs exist. But for an ordinary person: if you took a loan, my friend, you have to pay it back.
Says the Imrei Shefer: most people in the world make this very mistake. When they acquire property by the sweat of their brow, laboring until they possess it, they imagine it is theirs - an eternal possession belonging to them. And what happened to Yonah when the castor-oil plant was taken from him? "He burned with anger, even unto death." And what was said to him? "It came into being in a night and perished in a night" - you received it on loan, and the loan must be repaid. And so said Beruryah, the wife of Rabbi Meir, when their two sons passed away, may Hashem protect us: "We received a deposit, and the deposit must be returned; the Master of the deposit has come and taken back His deposit." One who views life in this way does not resent it when something is taken from him.
And he adds: if only they were wise, they would understand that the wealth they amassed did not come to them as a purchase. You did not buy it; it is not a sale. In a sale, anyone who comes with money is given the same item; in a loan, the lender chooses to give to one person and not to another. There is also an allusion in the verse: "under the sun." The sun symbolizes time, and everything man possesses is temporary. Man takes nothing physical from here that is eternal.
Here, the explanation of the Imrei Shefer is novel and differs from the other commentators. They explained yilvenu as related to accompaniment (levayah) - what will accompany you to the World to Come. But he explains yilvenu as derived from a loan (halva'ah): everything one has here in this world is nothing more than a loan, and this loan must be repaid at some point. This is an entirely different outlook on all of life. A person should not be like that fool who takes a large loan, becomes convinced that he made the money himself, and begins spending recklessly, failing to realize that the time will come when he must return what he took. All of this world is a loan from the hand of the Owner, from what the Holy One, blessed be He, gave him.
From here arise two questions: Who is the lender, and how is this loan repaid? After all, we all know - or at least most of us know - that loans must be paid back. So how is it repaid?
An answer to this, he explains, was already provided by the author's father in Tehillim: "The wicked borrows and does not repay, but the righteous is gracious and gives." Yet one must wonder at the verse: we see wicked people who deny God above, heretics, and despite all this, they do not fall into the category of "one who borrows and does not repay." There are wicked people who would never take a loan they do not intend to pay back, and if they take one, they repay it to the last penny. There are wicked people who are scrupulously honest in matters of fairness, interpersonal relations, and financial affairs; perhaps not strictly according to halachic rules, but they neither steal nor rob. If so, how can it be stated unequivocally that every wicked person borrows and does not repay?
Rather, one must examine the distinction between borrowing an object (she'eilah) and taking a loan (halva'ah), a distinction explained by Chazal in several places: borrowed property is returned in kind (as the exact same item), whereas with a loan, one returns something else. When I lend you a drill, I do not expect you to return a screwdriver or a different drill. When I lend you a chair, you are not meant to return another chair, but that exact same chair. In contrast, when I lend you a tomato, you are not meant to return that exact tomato - for if so, why did you take it from me? - rather, you return another tomato. So too with money: if I lent you a sum of money and after two months you come and say to me, "Here are the exact same bills with the same serial numbers" - was that why you took the money from me? You could have left it with me and I would have put it to use! The entire essence of a loan is to take the item, use it, and return another in its place.
And from here: when a person buys on credit, here too he has permission to do with the merchandise as he pleases, and what he must do is pay money. If you took bread and milk on credit, the shopkeeper does not demand that you return bread to him, but that you pay money. Buying on credit is called a loan in the language of Chazal: "The shopkeeper gives credit, and whoever wishes to borrow may come and borrow." We see that what you take in a store and commit to pay for is categorized as a loan in the language of Chazal.
Now, if we take everything we have learned and contemplate the affairs of this world, we find that this world is like a shop from which you draw products, and everyone takes on credit, on loan. Everything a person takes here from this world - the Holy One, blessed be He, is the great Shopkeeper over the entire world, and everything is recorded in the ledger. The ledger is open and the hand writes, the shopkeeper extends credit, and in the end, a price must be paid. And the price, as we explained, is not returning the exact same item, but offering something else in exchange, for it is a loan.
And what is the price? The Torah and the mitzvot. This is what the Holy One, blessed be He, asks of you: "And now, Israel, what does Hashem your God ask of you, but to fear [Hashem your God]..." Hashem wants you to pray, to recite berachot, to learn Torah. In a loan, you give something in exchange for what you took; therefore, in exchange for the merchandise that sustains our lives, the Holy One, blessed be He, says: You ate a fruit - say thank you; you ate bread - say thank you. What Hashem asks of man, to acknowledge what was given to him, is itself the payment, and this is the repayment of the loan, like a person paying the shopkeeper who extended credit.
And someone who draws goods, draws and draws, and never pays - how do we define him? "The wicked borrows and does not repay" (Tehillim 37:21). From here comes the answer to our question: Does every wicked person take loans and fail to repay them? Certainly so, when speaking of a loan in this sense. You received abundance from Hashem, and "does not repay" means that you did not fulfill mitzvot, did not study Torah, did not do the will of Hashem - it turns out that you are a wicked person who borrows and does not repay. You received a loan, the Holy One, blessed be He, the Shopkeeper, provided you with your life, and you provided no payment in return. And the truth is that every wicked person is a borrower who does not repay - every wicked person takes loans and does not return them to the Holy One, blessed be He.
And there is a fine nuance in the phrasing of the verse: If it were speaking of an actual monetary loan, where I lend you money and you repay my loan, it should have said, "The wicked borrows and does not settle [yifra]." But since this is not an actual monetary loan but rather goods bought on credit, which is also a type of loan, we can understand why it says "does not pay [yeshalem]": When you go to the shopkeeper, you do not tell him, "I came to settle a loan," but rather, "I came to pay for the goods I took." This is why it is called "does not pay." And the repayment is the fulfillment of the Torah and mitzvot - one must pay for what he received, and if not, he falls under the category of the wicked.
And despite all this, it says, "and the righteous is gracious and gives." The "righteous" here is not the righteous person contrasted with the wicked, but the Holy One, blessed be He: Hashem is the Righteous One, and you, as it were, are the wicked borrower. And regarding this Righteous One, one cannot speak in terms of a lender or one who extends credit, for the wicked does not pay, and therefore Hashem gives to him as a free gift. And why does it say chonen ("is gracious")? Because Hashem knows that no returns will come from you, no benefit will arise from you, and you will not fulfill mitzvot - so He gives to him as an unearned gift. This does not mean he will not have to account for it in the World to Come, but here in this world, Hashem is gracious and gives. If Hashem expected payment from him, meaning that he was yet destined to pay, it would have been fitting to say "lends and gives"; but regarding the wicked person who will not fulfill mitzvot, this is not a loan but a grant, and therefore "is gracious and gives" - an act of kindness as a free gift. Thus the verse speaks of a loan, both from the perspective of the lender and that of the borrower, and we have also learned what constitutes the repayment of the loan - which man must occupy himself with throughout the days of his life: the fulfillment of the Torah and mitzvot.
However, it is very important to emphasize that one could make a mistake here. We compared this entire matter to a loan, and it is all true, but the parable is not perfect. For when I give you a loan of one hundred thousand dollars, I am lacking those hundred thousand; and if I now need to buy an apartment and you have not repaid, I am hindered and cannot do so, and therefore I approach you and ask that you return it to me. The repayment is for the lender's need; he requires it. So too, the shopkeeper needs the money, and when he tells you, "Pay me," he says so because he needs the money.
But the Holy One, blessed be He, when we compare Him to a lender, does not need your mitzvot and does not need your good deeds. "If you act righteously, what do you give Him, or what does He receive from your hand?" (Iyov 35:7) - He, blessed be He, lacks nothing. Everything a person accomplishes is solely for his own benefit. The Holy One, blessed be He, presents matters as a lender, as though He needs your mitzvot, as though He desires them and asks that you perform them - but why does He ask? Not for Himself, but for you. Like a parent asking his son to dedicate time to his studies: Who gains from this? The son. The parents want something to come of their child, and perhaps there is also a benefit to them, as a parent takes pride in his child. And even regarding the Holy One, blessed be He, it says, "Israel, in whom I take glory" (Yeshayahu 49:3), yet this is not something that adds to Him, blessed be He, but is entirely for your good.
"And I praised joy" - the joy that Kohelet praises is not frivolity, but the joy of one who is satisfied with his portion, content and fulfilled with what the Holy One, blessed be He, has given him, and therefore does not come to robbery, fraud, interest, or debts that he has no means to repay. "To eat and drink" - from what Hashem has granted him, and according to the Midrash: the eating and drinking of Torah, which alone will accompany a person to the World of Truth. And "that will accompany him in his toil" [vehu yilvenu va'amalo] - according to the novel explanation: everything you have in this world is not an acquisition but a loan and credit from the great Shopkeeper, and the ledger is open and the hand writes. The repayment is Torah, mitzvot, and gratitude; and one who refrains from paying is "the wicked borrows and does not repay," while what he receives is only "the Righteous One is gracious and gives" - a free gift. And all of this is not because the Holy One, blessed be He, needs our payment, but because everything is solely for our own good.